Hydrostatic Force

 The force is the integral of the pressure over an area.

 The pressure distribution on a submerged body is not uniform
but increasing with depth as shown below.
 The magnitude of the force is the area of the pressure diagram.
 A quicker method to compute the force is: F = γhc A
 Here hc is the vertical distance from the free surface to the
centroid of the area A (e.g., gate)

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Hydrostatic Force – Location
 The equation F = γhc A gives the resultant force
 For moment calculations, the point of application (center of
pressure) of this resultant force is needed
Ic
 The location of the force is at: y p = yc +
yc A
 Here y is the slant (not vertical) distance from the free surface as
shown below. The subscript c stands for centroid.
 I is the moment of inertia of the submerged body (gate) about its
centroidal axis. The formula for various geometries can be
found in the Appendix.

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Application Examples
 All examples consist of finding the magnitude and location of
the resultant hydrostatic force on a submerged gate or window
using the above two equations.
 Few are straightforward application while most involve also an
application of the moment equation to determine the reaction,
the force needed to open a gate or keep it closed.
 Vertical gates are relatively simpler to solve than slanted ones.
 All problems involve a constant density except for the interesting
tidal gate problem.

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